This is my first blog; had to make quite an effort with finding time from work and also struggling to make the pc cooperate or rather operate. Much has been said and written about the sad events of Indian hockey recently. It is difficult to find out whether Gill knows about hockey or whether the ex-coach Gerhard Rach knows English. I am not sure about Rach's not having fluency in English had anything to do with the dismal shown by the Indians and his subsequent dismissal. If that were that true then Mourinho would not have taken Chelsea to the top of the English Premier League.
Now it is time to look at the Premier Hockey League(PHL) that was started recently, ostensibly with the aim of uplifting the standards of Indian hockey. A very noble intention. I feel it is too early to say anything negative about the experiment. However, I cannot be anything but cynical about it. It is my feeling that the PHL is just an attempt by the television channels-in this case ESPNSTAR and the corporates to be politically correct. For a long time the television channels and the corporate sector have been accused of neglecting hockey and other sports. The channel in question takes great pain to show that the improvement in the English football scene has been due to the efforts of the channels-a fallacious argument. It is to be recognised that English football was a force to be reckoned in football even before the English Premier League came into existence.
Fancy names and other fancy things like cheer- girls and timeouts don't have the potential to have a long-term impact on hockey in the country. What it has done is to strengthen the hands of people like Gill and Jothikumaran. The PHL has the blessings of people like them who have very little in their hearts for the betterment of the national game of hockey.
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